Part 2 is a work in progress. Or more of an essay in progress. Maybe essay is too short and suggests coherence. War and Peace. Working title: Warcraft and Peace.

One of the conditions I'd figured out has been met: a free trial. Not merely a two week, minus download time, trial, but a whopping 20 levels. This just screams "play all the cool new starting zones and then leave before the not-quite-as-impressive later levels". So, once I get intertubes (Wednesday!), I'm going to give it a try.

My goal is to evaluate it from two perspectives. First, I will try to approach it with an open mind, as a new player, just seeing what this "world of warcraft" thing is all about. It is possible that I will be unable to do this. Second, which I should note that these are not in any particular order, hopefully they will be simultaneous, will be my current perspective. By which I mean, cynical and jaded, filled with nerdrage and nostalgia, seething at the very idea of this abomination that they pretend to call an expansion. These two perspectives have very little overlap, so I expect it will create a broad picture.

First up will be the Goblins with their love of bombs and forced heterosexuality (little Republicans?). Last will be the Forsaken, which I expect to be the most fun. I've already played the human and dwarf starting areas. That leaves, in possibly this order: gnomes, orcs, trolls. Or perhaps gnomes, trolls, orcs works better. I'd flip a coin, but that doesn't work as well with three possibilities because then I have to use multiple flips linked to a formula to push the overall probabilities toward 33% each, which isn't exact and requires a lot of flips to be anywhere close to a decent approximation.

I'm scared. What if I like WoW? Or worse, what if I log in and a GM is like "hey, we were trying to contact you to hire you but you don't check that email account, so we were waiting for you, but then you didn't log in for months and we gave your job to some guy we found spamming in trade." That would be awful!

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LOL...'possible'?good grief. I am truth be told tempted to do just this every other week and maybe I should. but I already know I can't turn back the time and it's going to be painful. painful. and the sub is the least of my worries. that said, I haven't experienced most starting areas and quests myself, so I COULD just focus on that.

What Kring said, Goblins and Worgen are not available for an unlimited trial... on top of that once WoW gets its hooks into you there is no coming back... believe me I was in your situation once and I have since been sucked back in :D

If the guild is still intact, the people are still there and you have enough time to play, can you get used to the fact that Cata WoW is more of a lobby based dungeon grinder than a living breathing "omg what the hell is this" world? See I used to be in it for the story/world... now I play WoW like I play console shooters. Log on, queue up, kill stuff, log off. Being a healer and having a pocket tank makes the leveling process way smooth. Unfortunately the charm of the world is gone, I have yet to leave Ogri except for the fishing daily.

I went through a similar process beginning of 2011, I wasn't sure if Cata was for me and if the game and I just weren't made for each another anymore. I took 9 months off, played the unlimited trial til I got sick of capping at level 20, then got in touch with my old friends/guildies and rerolled on a new server, no heirlooms, no bags, no cash, no achievements and loads of fun so far. What happens at 85? I don't know but by then I should have gotten at least 2 months of entertainment out of my new shaman :D

I'll get back to you when GW2 and SWTOR come out and let you know if the WoW magic is still there.

It's been my experience of late that the extended free trial is just enough to scratch whatever WoW itch I might have once in a while, forestalling any irrational impulses I might have for using the time card I still have. I would still like to see some of the higher level areas, and I will someday, but I have a lot of other things going on that are simply more important.

...and once I've seen and played through everywhere I want to go, I don't have a drive to do it all repeatedly for better shinies.

You will realize quickly that 20 levels pass in about the same time as 10 levels used to; the xp rates are that bad (good?). I also agree with the comment that the world is now a big waiting for dungeon lobby...a place to play minigames and get achievements while waiting to play the real game (battlegrounds, arenas, dungeons, raids).

@Salvaenus: I'm pretty sure the guild and people aren't there anymore. It's been a while. A few I could maybe drag back in with me, but I fear the extened network is scattered. I don't think I could play it as a lobby game. If I wanted that, TF2 works a million times better. Now if only TF2 had group PvE (I don't mean bots).

@Tesh: Quiet. If you keep saying that Blizzard will have to nerf the freeness to get you to pay a bit of money. There's your F2P is evil, right there! :P

@VGP: I am very good at making things take longer than they should. I seem to recall level 5 took a few hours at first, thanks to my trip through the Barrens.

@HNtG: Is there a substitute activity which would be more fun, relative to the dollar cost? I've wondered this myself, given the low cost, could a low-fun WoW still be a good deal?

I imagine my tips would involve a lot of "don't finish X quest, because the previous phasing is more fun."

Lower server/faction transfer prices are the only thing that would get me back. I unsubbed because everyone I knew on a low-pop server left. If I had to go about making whole new "friends," then I might as well start fresh on a new server.

But I'll be damned if I A) spend $55 per toon moving people, or B) leave all my gold/heirlooms/professions/etc and start over the grind from scratch.